Impulse
by operaghost96
Summary: Some can't handle the pressure. Some want to feel. Some don't want to even live anymore. This story follows the journeys of three teenagers on their road to rehabilitation, and the unlikely friendships and relationships that result.
1. Act on your Impulse

**A/N: I know, another story. But this one won't be all that long. This was inspired by 'Impulse' by the amazing Ellen Hopkins, and follows the same basic storyline. For those of you who read this, please don't spoil in reviews. For those who haven't, READ IT ALREADY. The woman is a genius. This and 'Identical' were literary masterpieces.**

Rin, even now, wasn't sure what made him put the gun to his chest and pull the trigger. There were a number of factors, for sure. The infuriating perfection of his twin brother, Yukio, his mother, Yuri, and his father, Shirou, maybe. Maybe it was the fact that after getting caught with his teacher, Akane, and resulted in her getting sent to jail. But then he considered the third option: the pressure of perfection every single day. Football. Basketball. Baseball. Student council. Dating Shiemi, the prettiest girl in the entire school. Getting A's on every single test (he usually failed at that aspect). And most important, being seen, not heard when his family had company. Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was a combination of the three and resulted in him at the end of his rope. _I wonder what Yukio thinks of me now? Does he still even think of me as his big brother? _He shook his head, or at least what he could in the hospital bed. His brother still cared, though they were never particularly close. It was his parents he'd have to worry about. Once the doctor decided that he was 'okay' enough to return to school. Or 'okay' as he could get. _Doctor. _Wasn't that what Yukio said he wanted to be when he was little? Was his dream even still the same?

Did Rin have a dream of his own?

XXXXX

Izumo Kamiki, on the other hand, knew exactly what had gotten her sent to True Cross Recovery Center, or TCRC for short. She was trying to make it end. Tried to fly higher into the white than she had ever dared before. And she was truly flying. Until Eiji, her little brother, had found her, razor in her wrist. She felt the warmth of her red life pouring out of her wrist and onto the pristine tile floor. He screamed for help. Screamed for Grandmother. She wanted to shush him, to tell him that this was what she wanted, that this gave her peace. She felt the picture get fuzzy and closed her eyes, hoping for her eternal peace. Instead, she heard sirens. Grandmother screaming. Mother didn't scream, though. Barely said anything. But as she felt herself be lifted on the gurney, she whispered, "My angel tells me what you tried to do. You are hellbound, girl." She never paid attention to anything her mother said that started with 'My angel tells me'. When Izumo was about five, her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was so far gone by now that she heard the voice in her head and called it her angel. Her angel was what ruined her life.

XXXXX

Renzo Shima, on the other hand, was just sick of living, period. Sick of having his whore mother bring her customers to their tiny apartment. Sick of hearing them every night. Sick of what those men would do for 'dessert' on occasion. Most of all, sick of being discriminated against because of who he liked. True, he never really had a boyfriend, but then again, he never had any girlfriends, either. Ever since his mother's customer had touched him where and how a child should never be touched at three years old, he always found his eyes drawn to men rather than girls. But he always tried to push that kind of memory away. Booze his mother carelessly let out, first. Then, pills. And once he knew where to look, heroin. Smack was hard to come by, and expensive, and going without it made him feel like shit, and eventually even when it was in his system, he felt like shit, but when he got high enough, he realized there was nothing here. No siblings. His mother got her tubes tied after she got knocked up the first time. It was never a loss he mourned. The bitch didn't deserve to be a mother in the first place. Not much of a future. He and his mom were poor as fuck, thanks to the fact that she was the definition of cheap. No friends. He had nothing, he was a waste of space, he might as well just end it. He reached for the full bottle of ibuprofen his mother always kept as a spare—a half-bottle wouldn't do the job. Saying a half-assed 'goodbye world', he swallowed the bottle in one gulp.

Imagine his surprise when it wasn't 'goodbye world' after all.

XXXXX

Imagine all their surprise when fate decides to shove them together like the bitch she is.

**A/N: Please review! I own nothing. I am but a poor Pennsylvanian girl.**


	2. The First Crossing

**A/N: Thank you so much, Krikanalo, your review and follow. I'll try to be less spotty with my updates from now on. By the way, there is no smut in this. Or yaoi.**

_Fourteen days, _Rin thought tiredly. Two weeks since he was moved from the security of his strictly no-visitors hospital room (his parents paid heftily for him to have his own room, hand-pick his doctors, and keep everything from the news to prevent soiling of the good Fujimoto name) to this hell called True Cross.

Two weeks in, and he was still Level 1.

Meals brought to his room at nine, noon, and five. Appointment at two with bulldog-faced Ms. Watsuki (no wonder she wasn't married. If her face didn't scare her man off, the Pit Bull personality sure as hell would). His brother knew he had a thing for a lot of older women, Rin called them more mature, but not even he would even _think_ about sleeping with her. No group rehab. No eating with other inmates… ahem, patients. None of that came until Level 3. Level 2 granted him television and solid food, trusting him enough not to intentionally choke on his meal or stab himself with his spork. Gratefully, that was what he was supposed to be bumped up to today. For now, he simply had to content himself with the pills assigned to him every four hours, along with sleeping pills before bed.

He'd learned a lot about TCRC from the pamphlets (the only allotted reading material in his cell… room). It was government-owned and operated. Any poor kid fresh out of the hospital could stay at the halfway house for fuck-ups. It wasn't just psychos why tried to off themselves. No. it was for twenty breeds of crazy. Junkies. Sluts. Pregnant sluts. Whores. Kids who tried to kill themselves. Schizos. Even kids who tried to kill other people. He wasn't sure who was on the patient list at the moment, however, so he didn't know the official tally.

Rin suddenly found himself wishing he had his phone. TCRC staff took it away from him. He could have it back when he reached Level 4, and even then, he could only contact approved people. Ayame? Nope. Prison. Shiemi? She probably—no, definitely—hated him for cheating on her with their _married_ English teacher. Yukio? When was the last time he even had a proper conversation with his own twin brother? Looking back, he regretted it. They stopped talking since their parents shoved their hopes of a professional athlete on Rin and a high-class lawyer on Yukio. They tried to fight it, but if there was anything they learned, it was that arguing with Mother only left them with a bruised ego and a slap on the face. Well, he thought, no one to text. Might as well count town 'til they give him those wonderful little pills.

XXXXX

Izumo found herself boredly playing with the gauze around her left wrist, covering the massive scar that had almost ended her life, and several, smaller ones that soared her into the white. Stitches were placed there in the hospital and the doctor said, with gossamer layered disgust in his voice and eyes, that her wrist would scar. She didn't care. She was trying to kill herself. Why would she stop and think, _Not this deep. I don't want to have a scar at my funeral._

Gran had sent her here after she was sewn up and the five-day hospital observation period was over. Probably so she didn't end up like her mother, sitting in a chair, only halfway aware of her surroundings. A wave of empathy hit her for her grandmother. She had raised her mother, never noticed anything wrong with her. Out of place. But still, Mother wasn't truly 'Mother' since she deliriously started rambling about angels, heaven, and redemption.

Izumo was drowning in the blue, however. Everything felt like she was swimming in thick syrup. Sounds were muted. The world slowed to a stop. She knew how to fix this, like she had so many dozen times before. But the staff doctors cut her nails to the quick, and she didn't see anything she could cut with. She looked at the clock. 10:30. Almost time for her first group therapy session. _Don't say 'therapy'. Too much like Mom._ She wondered who would be there with her. Kids who only cut for attention? Girls who got knocked up? Teens with eating disorders? Her last thought hit her hardest. Kindred spirits who didn't want to live anymore, but messed up somewhere on the road?

XXXXX

Shima felt ten curious pairs of eyes on him and the other new girl. Despite the fact this place was designed for assorted screw-ups, he decided it was still like high school—all he heard was speculation on why he and the other girl were there. He let his eyes drift to the left, to the other new girl. Hair so dark it was violet fell to her waist. Her eyes were a breathtaking crimson, skin a flawless ivory. He wondered what a girl so beautiful was doing here. And why he couldn't tear his eyes from her hypnotizing form. He somehow gathered the courage to introduce himself. "I'm Renzou."

The girl rolled those enchanting eyes, but replied, "Izumo."

"So how does a pretty girl like you end up here?"

From the back of the room, he heard a snort. "Pretty? I was sure you only thought other boys were pretty." Renzo shot a glare Ryuuji's way. Nobody knew anything about him, but the word was that he tried to drown his kid brother in the bathtub. Looking the muscular boy up and down, Shima didn't doubt it for a second. He felt the blood rush to his face from the embarrassment. Instead of Izumo looking at him like a freak or just ignoring him, she piped up.

"Well then, shit for brains, what's it to you?"

"Hey, Gorgeous, I don't want any trouble. How's about you sit next to me and I show you?"

She responded to this by flipping him off.

The doctor chose that opportune time to walk into the room. She had pink hair with blond tips pulled back into a ponytail, and she was practically falling out of the suit she was wearing. "Hello! I'm doctor Kirigakure! We have two new patients here. Renzou, Izumo, why don't you introduce yourselves?"

Renzou decided to be the first to introduce himself. "I'm Renzou Shima. I'm from Kyoto."

"And how did you get here?"

"Isn't there a doctor-patient confidentiality issue?"

Glaring at him, she moved on to Izumo.

"My name is Izumo Kamiki. That's pretty much all you fuck faces need to know about me." She chose a seat beside him.

"Hey, Izumo, do you want to eat with me for lunch today?"

She shrugged. "I guess. Not like I have anyone else to talk with."

Just as they sat down, they saw a blue-haired boy in the hold of Dr. Watsuki.

**A/N: Please review! They help me write faster!**


	3. Pathetic

**A/N: I updated as soon as I could. I've had band camp all this week, on top of painting my room, so I didn't have much time for writing. In this chapter, the trio converges for the first time.**

**I own nothing.**

Rin woke up to the blaring alarm. 8:00. He groaned and got up, grabbing a clean white t-shirt and gray sweatpants. He found himself missing his old designer clothes. His mother had insisted that he and his brother get 'a fashion sense'. He didn't care at all about the expensive price tags that his parents' jobs as high-end lawyers allowed him. In all honesty, he didn't even like the clothes that much. But that wasn't why he wore them. Not to dress up to impress his parents. But his clothes and perfect haircut _did_ have one principle advantage: getting laid. Not that his parents ever suspected him, of course. There was Ayame, obviously. An awful lot of cheerleaders. Girls who had crushed on him and think he didn't notice. And then there was Shiemi.

An aspiring model, Shiemi was model-pretty, all curves and perfect smile. However, she _did_ have a thing for thinking that her gorgeous size eight wasn't skinny enough and would hardly eat when he took her out. For a while, he was convinced he loved her. His heart would set off on a marathon every time she giggled or kissed him. And then he met Ayame. True, she was married, but he belonged to her, completely and totally.

And his parents ruined it.

_No, Rin. Your time with Ayame is over. Besides. You have a lot to look forward to today. At least you get moved up to Level 3 today._ He looked out the window. It was particularly ugly for late February. The snow fell in sheets, and he could barely make out the shape of a lone oak tree about twenty feet from his room. He walked to his bathroom, getting changed away from the eyes of the security camera in the corner.

_Great. The doctor's just gonna pry about what brought me here. At least I don't have to deal with Dr. Watsuki anymore. Any girl would be better-looking than her._ He hadn't seen anyone of the opposite sex other than Watsuki, and he was pretty sure that there would be a fair amount of girls there. Especially girls with self-esteem issues. They'd probably be anorexic as hell, but if there was anything he was good at, it was persuasion and finding ways to sneak out. Who knows? There might even have been a few girls in group therapy who resorted to turning tricks at the corner.

He grinned at the thought.

XXXXX

Izumo kept looking at the clock anxiously. Usually, she wasn't excited for anything, but since she met Renzou, she found herself waiting to spend more time with him. She knew neither could ever think of the other as any more than a friend, but for now, that was more than enough from here. In all honesty, she didn't think she was ready for another boyfriend after what happened.

She looked up again. The clock on the wall turned from 10:54 to 10:55. The guards would be here any second, escorting her to therapy. As per the daily routine, a few seconds later, they arrived, bringing her to therapy. To the major asshole Suguro. To her only friend, Renzou.

Surprisingly enough, there was a new patient. True, he wasn't _new_, but he was new to Level 3. She could tell by the way he anxiously looked at everyone, and he probably knew he wasn't allowed to sit down yet. All new patients to therapy had to introduce themselves. Looking at him, she wondered what landed him here. He was good-looking, with blackish-blue hair that ran itself into his eyes that was probably shorter before he came. His eyes were a blue she hadn't seen in a person before—far too bright to be natural, but patients here weren't permitted to wear contacts. He was obviously from a well-to-do family. Why would he end up here? He had no reason to try and kill himself. He was too well built to have an eating disorder. He wasn't schizophrenic, or if he was, he was in the very early stages. She knew schizophrenia too well to not know it when she saw it.

The boy's eyes nearly popped out of his skull when Dr. Kirigakure walked in, and she saw the faintest traces of a blush. At least now she knew he probably had a thing for older women. As with what happened when she and Renzou had joined a week ago, she told him to introduce himself. She didn't ask him any additional questions, such as why he was there. He introduced himself as Rin Fujimoto, from Tokyo, not far from here, she knew.

He chose the only available seat, by her and Renzou.

"Hi. I'm Rin," he said, offering his hand to the two of them.

"Shima," Renzou said, taking it. He looked at her. "This is Izumo. She doesn't really like talking to people. It took a few days for her to warm up to me. So could I bother you to ask what landed you here?"

In response, he pulled down the collar of his shirt to see an ugly scar, no doubt made by a gun. "My parents paid a lot of hush money to keep all of Tokyo from knowing."

She scoffed at him. If his parents had the money to keep things quiet, he had no right to try and end it, like she and Renzou had. "Pathetic."

XXXXX

Renzou stared at Izumo in shock. "Izumo! Why would you say something like that? You have no idea what he might have gone through."

"Because if his parents could afford to pay hush money, then he's pretty obviously from a rich family. He probably had everything he could ever want growing up, while me and you were poor. But he probably tried to kill himself over something incredibly minor. What? Did Stanford reject you?"

"Stanford is my brother's dream. Or, more technically, my parents' dream for my brother. To be a high-end lawyer like my parents. Their dream for me is to play professional baseball. So no. Stanford didn't reject me."

"Oh, my heart _bleeds._ Your parents pressured you to be a star athlete with perfect grades but you tried to kill yourself."

"My parents pressured me to be perfect. Perfect grades, setting records for every sport I played, having the perfect girlfriend…" he trailed off. "I found someone I loved. My English teacher. We tried to be quiet about it, but my parents found out and had her arrested. After that, the pressure just got worse. So yeah, I tried to end it. What's your excuse?"

"Sorry," Shima mumbled. He felt bad for any assumptions he made about Rin, but more than that, he was apologizing for Izumo, too.

Dr. Kirigakure cleared her throat. "Are you done?"

**A/N: Please review! And I cut these short intentionally, otherwise, they run on.**


	4. Why Now?

**A/N: Sorry for the late update, but life happens. And a question, on the incredibly off chance that an admin (or a member of 'Critics United') is reading. Why the fuck is your motto 'unleash your imagination' when there are so many goddamned rules?**

Lunch was particularly lonely for Rin. True, the first day, Shima had invited him to sit with him and Izumo, but after that, he decided that he couldn't deal with the (admittedly beautiful) red-eyed girl glaring at him constantly. So, he decided to eat his… slop… in peace. Or, solitude, more like. He was simply counting the seconds to one-on-one therapy with Dr. Kirigakure. Rin didn't know how she kept her job, dressing like she did, but all he knew was, he was grateful. He suddenly found himself idly wondering about what her policy was on patient-doctor relationships. He really hoped she allowed them.

No sooner had that unwelcome at first thought crossed his mind than a security guard appear before him. "It's time for your session with Dr. Kirigakure."

That day, Shura was wearing a business suit—pencil skirt, button down white shirt, and a black blazer laying carelessly on her desk. The buttons over her chest were straining against her massive… assets. He forced himself to look away from that mesmerizing sight. Was she _trying _to get her patients all hot and bothered? Did his parents even _know_ that his new psychologist was the perfect woman?

She smirked at him. "How are you feeling today, Rin?"

That voice… oh, that silky smooth yet sultry voice. He had to clear his throat. "I'm doing great today."

"I'm glad to hear that. Your doctors have decided to wean you off of your pain medication. It's been about a month, and you've been doing much better. Also, you know that Easter is coming up in a few weeks. If you visit your family, we'll be willing to bump you up a level."

One level? For putting up with his mom's obsessive-compulsive ham dinner and the Easter vigil mass at his father's old Catholic church that almost put him to sleep every time? He deserved to be put up to level seven for that!

At seeing his face, she continued, "Of course, you don't need to be making a decision just yet. I simply wanted to let you know the option was open. Several patients will be gone for the holiday."

"Shima and Izumo?"

She smirked. "Well, you of all people know how strict the privacy policy is."

He laughed a little. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

XXXXX

"Don't you think you're being a little harsh on the kid?" Renzou asked Izumo over his water. He had just swallowed his antidepressants and at least one guard had to stand watch to make sure he took them and not stockpiled them, considering the way he tried to kill himself. Just like she wasn't even allowed near a paper clip or hair pin. And forget about picking at old scars. Even with her antidepressants, she was still drowning in blue. Although his presence had helped her a bit.

"No, I'm not, actually. It was a completely selfish reason! 'Oh, I couldn't handle the pressure!' Ugh. Gag me. She stabbed her fake meatball with the spork. Another privilege she was denied. Forks and knives.

"What has it been with you?"

"What?"

"Sometimes you're cranky, and others, you're just so happy. I don't get it. At all."

"Miss Kamiki?" the guard inquired.

"Yes?"

"We decided to run a few tests due to some observations of Dr. Kirigakure's."

With that, she was led though a maze of corridors into a bare room.

XXXXX

Shima hated… absolutely _loathed…_ being alone. When he was alone, all he could think about were the demons on his back. That man's breath, reeking of cigarettes and cheap beer, already stinking and sweaty from what he had probably already done with his mother.

That was the one scar he could never get rid of—that pain. Or what _he_ did to that man not a month later.

The bell that signified the end of lunchtime being over rang and Shima sighed. Nothing better than another five hours alone in his room, reading psychology books, the only kind he was allowed to read, aside from the pamphlets.

He couldn't help but think of the offer Dr. Kirigakure had made him this morning. Mom sure as hell didn't want to see him, never did, but what the Doc said was… his dad wanted him to come up.

Renzou was never close with his father. He left when he was about a month old, leaving teenaged Yosuke with a child. Of course, his dad _was _on the fast track, the head of some corporation in Tokyo now, he thought. But they hadn't spoken in years. Renzou wasn't even invited when his father got married, though from what he saw in the papers, it was some cheap, curvy, blond girl he met on a business trip to America. So why did Dad want to see him now, after all these years?

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Izumo shifted nervously in the desk, waiting for Dr. Kirigakure to walk in with results for the test she had just taken. At least, she thought it was a test. In addition to looking at her notes, the doctor had been asking an awful lot of questions, about hallucinations and delusions. It sounded like what the doctors had asked her mother when she had started seeing her angel.

At long last, the doctor came in, informal as always, with a pen stuck behind her ear and a pencil in her ear, coat hanging carelessly over her shoulder.

"Well, after the tests, I'm afraid the results are conclusive. First, obviously, I thought it was just depression. Then, bipolar disorder. But now, I'm afraid…" the doctor sighed. "Izumo, you have schizophrenia."

**A/N: I don't own Ao No Exorcist. Please review though! And it won't be exactly the book from here on out, since it's been a while since I read 'Impulse', but it will have the same ending. No spoilers in reviews, those who have read it.**


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